


Why You Left Paris

by killclaudio



Category: due South
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Episode: s01e22 Letting Go, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-02
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-10-26 22:47:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10796316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killclaudio/pseuds/killclaudio
Summary: Post-‘Victoria’s Secret’, Fraser’s physical therapist is not Jill Kennedy, but Ray Kowalski.





	Why You Left Paris

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the _First Line Flashfic Festival Challenge_ on Livejournal.

Ray had three and a half hours left in his shift. Christ, what a day. Running the aerobics class had really taken it out of him. He laced his fingers and reached above his head to stretch, up on his toes, back arched, leaning backwards as far as he could. Which was pretty fucking far. You didn’t get to be a physiotherapist without being at least a bit flexible.

Two girls walking down the hospital corridor shot Ray an admiring glance, which he returned with a wink and a grin.

“Oh, stop showing off.” The head nurse, Leila, whacked him playfully on the back of the head with his patient list for the afternoon. “Make yourself useful and go knock someone’s spine back into shape.”

“Spine?” Ray glanced over the list. His cystic fibrosis patient, Sam, was back; there was some girl with a knee injury; and… “Someone was shot in the back?”

“Yeah.” Leila leaned closer and lowered her voice, clearly dying for the chance to gossip about this. “He’s a cop, and the guy who shot him is his partner. He’s been coming in here every day for three weeks. Must be feeling pretty guilty, hey?”

“His partner. Huh.” Ray looked back down at the list. “Well, Benton Fraser. Welcome to PT.”

* * *

Damn, this guy was gorgeous. Ray leaned against the doorframe, enjoying the view. Dark hair curled messily around his forehead. Blue eyes. Built; that was obvious, even under the sweats and pile of hospital sheets. He was also talking to himself. Out loud.

“Hey. ‘m I interrupting something?”

Benton looked up sharply, looking a little embarrassed.

“No, not at all. Come in.”

“I’m Ray Kowalski. I’m-”

“The physical therapist.”

Ray looked at him a moment, head cocked to one side, and under his gaze the guy blushed bright red. Which was actually sort of cute.

“You recognise me?”

“Ah, n-no, no that was deduction.”

“So you deduced me, huh?”

Ray pulled the covers that had been wrapped around Benton’s legs off to the side and ran a quick professional hand up either side of his torso. His first impression hadn’t been wrong. Strong, and probably supple. He should have been recovering much faster than this.

“You see, you have about you the scent of eucalyptus which is a common ingredient in muscle liniments and that is mixed with, I would say chlorine, which I would imagine would be from the whirl pool and on top of that there is. . .ah, cocoa . . . hand lotion?

Ray laughed. “Hair gel. It don’t stick up like this on its own, you know.”

Ben eyed Ray’s streaked and heavily spiked hair.

“No, I don’t suppose it does.”

“So.” Ray glanced over the scars Ben was sporting on his face and chest, the way he was unconsciously holding his left leg bent slightly more than was usual. “Do you the same favour?”

“The same favour?” Ben echoed.

“Yeah. Let’s see. You’ve broken your left leg twice. Second one was pretty nasty. Must have fallen...close to sixty feet.”

“Yes. It was a fifty-seven foot cliff.”

“Someone push you over?”

“Actually I jumped.”

Ray stared for a second, wondering if the guy was yanking his chain, but if he was then he was damned good at deadpan. Jumped off a sixty foot cliff. Jesus.

“Ok, well, you’ve got some interesting scars here. This one,” he pointed to Ben’s chest, “looks like it was made by something with teeth. And, uh, hair.”

Ben looked pretty uncomfortable and Ray could see that whatever he was going to say was some excuse or evasion or something, so he cut him off.

“You know what, buddy? If it was something involving an animal I don’t think I wanna know.”

“Understood.” But Ben smiled at him.

“They said you were a cop. You work with horses or something before you got into that?”

“After, actually. I’m a member of the RCMP. Equine training comes as standard.”

“That would explain it.”

“Explain what?”

Your knees are a bit bowed. You horse must have been, what, sixteen hands?”

“As a rule.” Ben was looking at him with a combination of amazement and approval. Ray could really get used to that. “That’s quite a talent you’ve got, Mr. Kowalski.”

“Call me Ray. And yeah, well, I used to want to be a cop. Long time ago. Guess some of it stuck.”

“What made you change your mind?”

“It was, uh, my girlfriend at the time, Stella.” Ray always felt like a loser when he told people this bit. How he gave up his career for a girl who dumped him two years later, even if he was happy with what he did now. “See, she wanted to be a doctor, cure cancer, all that idealistic shit. And she didn’t like the idea of me becoming a cop. Said that I’d be shooting them faster than she could stop the bleeding. She said hey, maybe if I worked in a hospital too, we’d see more of each other when she was an intern. I didn’t have the grades to become a doctor but I was pretty good at sports and biology and stuff. And body language?” Ray winked. “I got it down.”

“I see.” Was it his imagination, or had Ben look a bit disappointed when he said ‘girlfriend’? “And does she work in the hospital with you?”

“Nah.” Ray laughed. “We broke up and she became a lawyer.”

Ben looked outraged, which made Ray feel better and better.

“It seems dreadfully hypocritical for a woman who criticised you for wanting to arrest criminals to then provide them with legal representation. I realise everyone has the right to a fair trial, but just the same…”

“Oh, no no, she’s Assistant State’s Attorney, she don’t defend the scumbags or nothing.”

“Even so, I would think…”

“Hey, it’s fine. I like what I do. I love my job. It was lucky. Seren-whatsits.”

“Serendipitous?”

“That’s the one.” Ray grinned and got a proper smile in return.

“I would have to agree, as clearly you are an excellent physical therapist. Certainly, it was fortunate for me.” That approval again. And yup, there went the blush to go with it. Ray was worried the grin he was wearing was going to split his face. He looked around for something to distract himself with. It wasn’t right to jump your patients while they were still lying in a hospital bed. It wasn’t.

Catching sight of the exercise bar above the bed, he unhooked it and pulled it down. Judging from the shine on the metal and the way it was still hooked to the wall, it hadn’t been touched.

"You ever going to use this thing?” he asked.

“I’m thinking about it.”

Ray snorted. “Keep thinking; three months. Start using; couple of weeks.”

Something was wrong here. A guy this strong and fit, who had been injured before and knew what it was like, should be well on the road to recovery by now. Whatever was going on, Ray was going to find out. Hadn’t he just told Ben how much he liked a mystery? Besides, the guy was gorgeous.

“So the bar doesn’t do it for you. Okay. Join me in the pool?”

He couldn’t wait to see Benton Fraser in trunks.


End file.
